Sleep is a critical part of our lives. It ensures that our bodies rest and can repair and is therefore crucial for long-term health. It is therefore important that people, i.e. subjects, sleep properly. Without proper sleep, chronic health issues may arise. For this reason, many solutions have been proposed that facilitate the monitoring of sleep by a subject, for example to diagnose sleep disorders or to improve the sleep process by creating an atmosphere in a confined space in which the subject is sleeping to improve the quality of sleep for that subject.
For example, CN 203101953 A discloses a device that comprises a brainwave detecting means to detect the brainwaves of a subject and a controller arranged to analyze these brainwaves to detect various sleep stages, with the device arranged to control an air conditioner, humidifier and/or lighting controller to improve the sleep of that subject in response to a detected sleep stage.
US2016/015315 A1 discloses a sleep assist system to monitor and assist the user's sleep. The system provides an alert to third person when the system is used by people with medical condition, elderly people and/or pregnant women, and an unexpected situation occurs. The sensing unit, the bedside device and a mobile terminal monitor the sleep cycles and/or improve the user's sleep. The system provides the user with improved understanding of individual sleep patterns and information about environment affects sleep quality.
US2011/190594 A1 discloses an arrangement for monitoring a patient's sleep activity. The arrangement provides a more accurate diagnosis and more effective treatment while reducing the required clinician time per patient for treatment delivery since a communication apparatus enables the healthcare professional to remotely communicate and assess the patient. Allows both duration and frequency of change of conditions to be measured since the display and processing unit keeps track of the point in time at which a change of the environmental condition or condition of the patient occurs.
A drawback of such devices is that they require physical contact with the subject attempting to sleep. Similar solutions, e.g. solutions in which pressure sensors or the like are fitted to a mattress on which a subject is attempting to sleep, to an extent suffer from the same problem or may suffer from accuracy problems. This physical contact can be perceived as uncomfortable and as such cause a disruption of the sleep of the subject being monitored. Hence, there exists a need for a sleep monitoring system that can monitor sleep in a more unobtrusive manner.